Golf Scrapbook Blog (The Other Ones)

Salish Cliffs

First hole – a 490-yard par five from the whites #3 handicap starter (I made par here and played lights out until the back nine)

Salish Cliffs is a Gene Bates-designed golf course on the property of the Little Creek Indian Casino (can you say Indian? Native American? Guardian?) down near Olympia, Washington. Played here just this year (2021) and really like this course. It has everything you want in a golf course from an aesthetic point of view. There are no homes, there are elevation changes throughout, it’s beautifully tree-lined and in great shape. It is almost always on Golf Digest’s Best in State currently ranking 8th.

I played with my buddy from the PNW, Brian, and our two buddies from the Southeast, Don and Jeff. They made the trip out to play here, Chambers Bay while I held a meeting, then we all headed down to Pronghorn. It was an awesome impromptu golf trip.

If you’re looking for a fun golf trip or a visit to a neat town, don’t do Olympia. Not much to see here. We ate at Anthony’s which was as nice as it gets in Olympia but the town was pretty dumpy. However, it is pretty convenient to hold a meeting here if you’re trying to accommodate folks from the Portland and Seattle areas (which we were).

As I write this review, we’re about to turn the page on 2021. As a golf year, 2021 was a pretty good year for me as we got back out on the road and saw and golfed with a lot of my work and geo-distant friends. It was a pent-up release of COVID frustration in that in each place I visited, there was such a need to just get out, have some Miller Lites, golf and reconnect.

The Vid Year II was mildly annoying from state-to-state but we were able to work around it – as we had no international trips planned. You’ll see from the scrapbook I played a good number of new courses in 2021 highlighted by our Big Cedar Lodge trip,

Politically speaking, 2021 was a nightmare with Biden and his puppet masters far exceeding the damage done than I could have ever anticipated in one year: Crushing our energy independence, more COVID deaths than under Trump, crushing small business by extending and re-extending “Don’t Work” benefits, facilitating government over-reach by mandates and conducting financial espionage on the middle class, weaponizing the government against dissenting voices, staggering inflation, defecating on our world standing (including the Afghanistan embarrassment), bowing to the woke, new lows on race relations, a border crisis, and so on and so on. The adults in the room need to be elected back into the House and Senate to put an end to this nonsense before the country is forever trashed. Luckily for the country, Joe Manchin (who I met by the way and he seemed like a pretty good guy) is standing up to the squad and leftist mob and torpedoing BBB.

For Philly sports 2021 was almost as bad as FJB! The Eagles ended the previous season by imploding and having to dump Carson Wentz for pennies on the dollar because his sensitive little feelings were hurt. Good riddance I say! The early returns on the Siriani hiring and Hurts era were excruciating but as we turn the page to 2022, the team looks like they’ve established a trendy “ground and pound” mentality that hopefully results in a playoff appearance. Plus we have three first round picks to solidify the defense as long as Howie doesn’t fuck it up.

Speaking of snowflakes, as the calendar turns the Sixers still haven’t resolved flipping the p*ssy Ben Simmons for literally anything. The Phillies had another bullpen implosion and missed the playoffs despite an MVP season from Bryce Harper. And the Flyers? They just suck. They missed the playoffs again in 2020-2021 and fired Vigneault early into the 2021-22 season after a soul-crushing 10-game losing streak. You know since Claude Giroux has become captain, the Flyers have missed the playoffs more than we made them and won only one playoff series. We have gone through at least four coaches and three general managers in his time as captain. See the common denominator here? It’s time…buh-bye Clod. So to wrap up 2021, I figured I would share some p*ssy photos…

You should recognize Wentz, Simmons and Giroux, but other Hall of Fame P*SSIES include Tomlin (leaving the army veteran Pena out to dry for coming out and respecting our flag while he and the other Steeler P*ssies hid in the locker room), Buttigeig (for extending his paternity leave while the supply chain crisis spiraled out of control under his “direct” watch as Transportation Secretary), the awesome “P*ssy … P*ssy” scene from Dumb & Dumber, Adam Hasley (who just quit during his make or break Phillies season because who knows why), LeBron (who will forever be Public P*ssy #1) and Andre Dillard (who is a monumental first-round bust who couldn’t switch to right tackle when called on to do so because it was too hard). Meow! But I digress.

To the course. I talked about Salish Cliff’s first hole on the caption above. Two is a short-ish par-four (another par) and three is a l-o-n-g though slightly downhill par three (211 from the whites). I parred it and was only two over through 6 before I started leaking some serious oil. I’ll try to caption the photos but overall the course had a lot of great movement in it. The conditioning was solid. It was well wooded without making you feel claustrophobic. It was a 132 slope from the whites so it was no pushover. Nine and 18 were signatures. All in all definitely a good public course to play if you find yourself in Olympia. Otherwise, there are good options much closer to Seattle-Tacoma and if you have the private chops, there are some really good privates in the area – TPC Snoqualmie and Sahalee of the ones I’ve played.

The 250-yard par four 2nd. Don’t be right.
The third is long but plays downhill. I took it off the right hill and rolled it onto the green
Four is a mid-length par four
I think this is the approach on five. The greens are all very well protected on Salish Cliffs as right puts you in some deep bunkers.
Six and the huge bunker fronting/lefting the green
Seven, as you see, is a tight corridor to thread. My tale of two nines had me hitting straight drives and scoring well on the front and spraying a little and sucking on the back. Keep the drives straight here.
Eight is just long as shit – 550 yards from the whites. It requires three long, good shots to get on. I don’t have that in me and took a seven.
Nine is only 355 yards from the whites but the pond on the left gobbles up any hooks and the narrow chute means you can’t play a slice or hook from the tee.
Long. Tight and you notice how it got noticeable darker on 10? I managed to bogey the 540-yard par five but things were about to go downhill quickly.
Here’s eleven, the skies got brighter as did my prospects – a par here on a lengthy nearly 400-yard tight par four.
You notice a theme here – keep it straight or die. Only my second double of the round here despite twelve being only the twelfth handicap.
Thirteen is a 155-yard par three. Another menacing trap left. I was in it and another double.
If I have one knock on Salish, there is some sameness about the course. Fourteen is another, carry some schmeggies, super tight mid-length par four. I bogeyed to get off the double train.
Fifteen. Downhill. Still schmeggies. Pinching bunkers in the landing areas. Be straight!
Sixteen takes a hard right around the trees. Not sure what I did wrong here but my first and only triple of the day (I am sure this was a surrender hole)
Seventeen is the easiest hole on the course and recovered for a bogey. A favorable pin placement for us.
All I needed to do to break 90 was par the 492-yard par five 18th. But alas, a bogey, a 90 but a great golf experience.
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